Lee KM Pallatina (951 KP) rated P.S. I Love You (2007) in Movies
Apr 13, 2021
Starring Hillary Swank & Gerrard Butler The story begins with a more realistic take on a couples quarrel regarding their personal life...
Continuing shortly after following the death of the husband from the time of the wake...
Perfectly orchestrated in more ways than one, widow Holly restrains herself from the outside world struggling to cope with her loss before being forced to live her life from love letters from the afterlife.
A beautiful and emotional story of tragedy and acceptance from begging to end.
Arthur Ashe: A Life
Book
For most of human history, death was a common, ever-present possibility. It didn't matter whether...
Shigeru Mizuki's Hitler: A Master Cartoonist and Veteran Tells the Life Story of the Man Who Started the Second World War
8.0
Rate It
Book
Seventy years after his death, Adolf Hitler remains a mystery. Historians, military tacticians, and...
Daniel Radcliffe recommended Matter of Life and Death (1981) in Movies (curated)
First Day Back
Podcast
How do you come back from the worst thing you’ve ever done, when you don’t even remember doing...
The High King (The Chronicles of Prydain #5)
9.3
Rate It
Book
When the sword of Dyrnwyn, the most powerful weapon inthe kingdom of Prydain, falls into the hands...
Interview with the Vampire (1994)
8.0
Rate It
Movie Watch
Blockbuster adaptation of Anne Rice's neo-Gothic bestseller. Two-hundred-year-old vampire Louis...
No Wall Too High
Xu Hongci and Erling Hoh
Book
Mao Zedong's labour reform camps were notoriously brutal modeled after the Soviet gulag, their...
Survivor: Auschwitz, the Death March and My Fight for Freedom
Book
Sam Pivnik's life story is a classic testimony of Holocaust survival. In 1939, on his thirteenth...
Hazel (1853 KP) rated This Shining Life in Books
Feb 15, 2021
This Shining Life by Harriet Kline is a heartbreaking tale about a family coming to terms with death. Told from several people's point of view, Kline explores different portrayals of grief. Ollie's mum wants to stay in bed; his aunt wants life to carry on; his maternal grandmother tries to exert control; his paternal grandmother wishes she could understand her grandson; and his grandfather has no idea what is going on. No one has time for Ollie and his obsession with his puzzle.
Before Richard's death, Ollie dominated family life. Ollie had a strict routine, always had a few spare pairs of socks with him because he hated dirty ones, and had meltdowns if his parents used the "wrong" tone of voice. Without his familiar habits, Ollie's life was a mass of confusion - an apt metaphor for the grief the rest of the family experienced.
With a contemporary novel such as This Shining Life, there is no "happy ever after". People do not come back from the dead. There is no answer to the meaning of life. Grief is a long process and different for everyone. It causes depression, anger and confusion, but hidden under all these negative feelings is love.
Harriet Kline takes death and grief seriously but adds a touch of humour to the narrative for the reader's benefit. It is not a light read, nor is it markedly profound. Instead, This Shining Life is painfully honest, and for that reason, it is beautiful.